Thales Alenia Space Practicing Prudent Optimism for GEO

29 November 2018

According to the star-gazing horoscope aficionados, Leo is action-oriented, loves to be in the limelight and has a distinct strength, able to earn "king of the jungle" status. Applied to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, there are some similarities. There certainly is a lot of activity in LEO, and with it being such a buzz word, it's hard to not hear people within the industry talking about LEO. But is it destined to be the king of the stars? It seems we'll soon be finding out but for now, it certainly has some of the industry's big hitters getting involved.

One example is Thales Alenia Space and SSL, owned by Maxar Technologies, which joined forces to form a consortium that snagged a contract from Canadian satellite operator Telesat for a system design and risk management phase for the planned LEO communications satellite constellation. Getting involved with LEO shouldn't be too surprising, said Thales Alenia's Executive Vice President (EVP) Martin Van Schaik. But this is not because of waning Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) orders.